I hope all the Family Affair fans out there had a great holiday. As we end the year, we’ve also reached the end of the Season 2–whew! I feel like I’ve been recapping this season since 1968. Although this isn’t a holiday episode, it has a warm family feeling that seems appropriate at this time of year.

Written by: John McGreevey. Directed by: Charles Barton.

When we look in on Uncle Bill, he’s packing to return home after a trip to Nigeria. After a brief time in New York, he’ll be heading off to either India or Iran. (He pronounces the latter country eye-ran, with the emphasis on the first syllable.)

Yikes, two months? Don’t you wonder how much he pays French to provide 24/7 childcare for months at a time?

French takes the arrival of Toothy better than I would.

Meanwhile, Bill catches up on all he’s missed in two months.

Duh, Uncle Bill. That photo is from early Season 1.

Bill also learns that the twins have gone through mumps, they’ve spent a weekend in the Berkshires with French, and Jody’s friend Pete has moved away. (Hmm–is this Peter, Miss Faversham’s charge?)

Bill seems unhappy about missing so much time with the kids.

His colleague isn’t especially supportive, asking “You, a full-time father?”

Buffy and Jody start preparing a list of things they want Bill to do with them. Buffy wants to visit the Statue of Liberty. (Fun fact: Mrs. Beasley is very patriotic.) Jody wants to visit a big swamp in “someplace called New Jersey.” They both want to ride the subway all day.

French is especially put out when Bill takes over one of his rituals–reading Winnie the Pooh to the twins.

In our next scene, we meet Bill’s girlfriend-of-the-week.

When Jody can’t shake hands because he has a splinter in his finger, Eileen takes it out.

She also chides Uncle Bill for not taking the “underprivileged” kids to a drive-in movie, and she suggests that they all plan a picnic together.

Speaking of fashion, Cissy’s orange shift is really cute from the back, with a deep cut-out V.

I have to apologize now–due to a glitch with this DVD, I was not able to get screen captures for the rest of the episode. This is the same file location on the disc that gave me problems with Episode 27. Hopefully, as we move on to a new disc next week, this issue won’t come up again.

Soon, we see that Bill is taking his role as a hands-on parent seriously. He’s taking the twins to school, joining a PTA committee, and urging Cissy to consult him when she makes decisions, even though the decision she made on her own–buying a typewriter with her allowance–is perfectly sensible.

Bill tells French to take it easy while the family is on its picnic with Eileen. French pouts that he’s had too much free time recently. When Bills says he’s just trying to give the kids “the kind of life an ordinary family has,” French wonders if there is a place for him in a ordinary family. (I know one ordinary family that could definitely use him–he could start in the bathroom that I’m due to clean after I finish this recap.)

On the picnic, Jody argues with an obnoxious kid who doesn’t believe his uncle was a globe-trotting bridge-builder. Bill tells the boy that he used to do that kind of work, but now he works in an office. Eileen notices that Bill seems unhappy with his current role and tells him that he should stop trying to be the ideal father. “There’s no such animal,” she says, pointing out that the ideal father for Johnny Smith isn’t the ideal father for Jody Davis.

Bill takes her words to heart. When he returns home and learns that his colleague is having trouble in Brazil, he’s ready to hop on the next plane. He tells the kids that he’ll miss them, but he’ll be happy doing the work he does best. The kids say they’ll be fine as long as they have French. We close the episode with French back in his natural role as Winnie-the-Pooh narrator.

Commentary

Though Family Affair is thought of as a traditional comedy, episodes like this have a progressive message about they many different family structures that can work for kids.

Guest Cast

Eileen Moran: Pippa Scott. Tyler: Ed Deemer. Miss Lee: Betty Lynn. Ward Halsey: John Milford. Boy: Eddie Rosson.

Pippa Scott had roles in a few 1950s movies, including The Searchers and Auntie Mame, but her career mostly revolved around appearances on TV and the New York stage.

Written by: Joseph Hoffman. Directed by: Charles Barton.

When we look in on the Davis family this week, Buffy is telling Mrs. Beasley the story of Little Red Riding-Hood.

After the story, the twins argue over Mrs. Beasley’s next move. Jody, apparently still under the influence of last week’s adventure, wants to tell the doll a story about cowboys and Indians. Buffy says Mrs. Beasley is tired and needs to go to bed.

(I always thought Mrs.. Beasley was supposed to represent an older lady, but Buffy treats her like a baby in this scene. Maybe the doll is senile.)

The argument turns into a tug-of-war with a startling conclusion.

Jody runs off to the kitchen to fetch French, who is relieved that the crisis is only a doll injury.

(In this scene, Jody sneezes and French says “Bless you.” It looks unscripted, but I’m not sure.)

Buffy asks French if he can fix the doll, and he admits that he doesn’t know how. Looking at the Mrs. Beasley I own, I’m pretty sure a needle and thread would suffice for this repair. Buffy’s doll has a weird wire sticking out of the arm hole, though. They probably placed it there to make a simple repair look impossible.

French suggests that the kids eat their lunch, but they object.

French decides that the situation warrants a call to Uncle Bill, although he’s in an important meeting.

It’s not that serious, Bill reassures them after hanging up: The kids just pulled Mrs. Beasley’s arm off.

Informing them that Mrs. Beasley is a doll, Bill cancels his lunch plans with the gentlemen so he can hurry home to Buffy.

The businessmen still look baffled.

In one of the twins’ “stupid moments,” Buffy takes the doll’s temperature and tells Bill that the thermometer reads, “She’s sick.” I’m pretty sure second graders know that thermometers give numerical readings.

Luckily, Cissy arrives home and injects some sense into the proceedings. She informs the men that doll hospitals exist to repair broken dolls.

Bill tells a reluctant French to accompany the kids to the doll hospital. It seems strange that, after all the assaults on his dignity since the kids arrived, going to a doll hospital puts French over the edge. Bill urges him to man up, and French finally agrees: “I will swallow my pride and walk through the dolls’ hospital emergency entrance as if it were perfectly natural for an adult Englishman.”

The “doctor” at the facility assures them that it will be a simple operation, taking about 20 minutes.

French calls Bill to inform him that the doll has entered surgery.

(Doll hospitals aren’t an American innovation, though. This one in Portugal, for example, dates back to 1830.)

Back at the hospital, the minutes drag on as the family waits for word about Mrs. Beasley. At one point, the “nurse” emerges from the operating room and says there has been a slight complication with the “cotter pin.” French tells Jody that the cotter pin must be something like a bone graft. When Jody asks if French has a cotter pin, French replies with a droll, “I think not.”

This guy turns out to be a real ass, though. When he learns that the Davis family is waiting through a surgical procedure, he launches into a series of jokes: Are you a relative of the patient? Did you fly in a surgeon from Vienna? What’s your medical plan?

He tells the man that the whole family is concerned, and it’s not the time or place for levity, before dismissing him with a hearty, “Good day, sir!”

Finally, Mrs. Beasley emerges after a successful surgery. Back at home, the kids play hospital with her. This being the ’60s, Jody is the doctor and Buffy is the nurse, of course.

In fact, the kids use Mrs. Beasley’s “cuperation” to scam for treats throughout the evening. They get Cissy to bring them strawberry pop and French to provide ice cream. They even try to convince him that Mrs. Beasley needs chocolate chip cookies and brownies for her dinner.

Bill tells them that modern doctors like to see patients back on their feet soon after surgery. The kids still insist that Mrs. Beasley still needs special treatment.

Now, Bill and French could handle this situation by letting Buffy play this game until they tire of it–not even a whole day has passed since the accident, after all! They could also refuse to provide any more treats. But Bill decides the situation calls for a technique his father invented–the “lollipop method.” It seems that when Bill’s father took his younger brother’s ratty security blanket away, he gave him a football to sleep with instead. The idea, Bill says, is that you never take something away from a kid without giving them something in return, even if it’s just a lollipop.

Bill announces to the twins that he would like to take them to an amusement park the next day. He can’t, though, since Mrs. Beasley is so sick.

Taking a beloved doll to amusement park? I think the Davises might become regular doll hospital customers.

Commentary

I always love a Mrs. Beasley episode, and this one is enjoyable through the doll hospital scene. The rest of it is rather anticlimactic and silly. French’s lines, as usual, mark the episode’s high points. I always wonder if someone on the production staff specialized in creating those because they’re consistently delicious, no matter who’s writing the episode.

Buffy seems less horrified than one would expect immediately after the accident. I suppose we could fall back on the explanation that she shuts down emotionally at times of crisis.

At the very least, this episode expands our vocabulary about mechanical engineering devices–we hear about cotter pins and (in Bill’s work conversation) about trunnion pins.

Guest Cast

Foster: Ivan Bonar. East Indian: Naji Gabbay. Mr. Green: Tim Graham. Mrs. Green: Natalie Masters. East Indian: Aly Wassil.

Gabbay and Wassil are Family Affair veterans. Bonar had a long stint on General Hospital in the 1960s and ’70s, playing a character called Chase Murdock. Masters popped up on Dragnet and Adam-12 occasionally, while Green made the rounds of TV westerns.